Here's To the Rest Of Us
by Lucinda Jean
Summary: Based off the self titles album The 1975
1. One: The 1975

The 1975

Generation X was supposed to be the best generation. They were going to change the world. They were going to invent cures to all the diseases and innovate all our gadgets and make me a big retirement home for me to live in. I was a baby boomer, I was an afterthought, I was a defect of the war. I was a disappointment; because as it turns out, our parents died for nothing. My father told me this as he drowned himself in sorrow and vodka.

"Your children," he slurred to me one night, the night I dropped out of high school, "will create a renaissance of entrepreneurship and outdo anything I or you could do." Then he passed out.

Well, fuck, because Generation X came out just as shitty as my generation did and almost as badly as my dad's.

Regine was conceived in the back of my boyfriend at the time's car. He was ugly as fuck. His face was slack with tiredness and his eyes were filled with dead brain cells. He told me to relax, because my thighs were too stiff as he grabbed them greedily with his callused hands. So I closed my eyes and pretended that lust was the same thing as love and that the smell of cigarettes was rose petals. I pretended that the suburban Toronto streets were a rural countryside in France. I pretended that the deserted alley I found myself in was a five star hotel in Paris. And when my boyfriend extinguished his cigarette into my arm, I pretended it was the delicate fingers of a rich pianist, gracefully warming every inch of my body.

Unfortunately, once I found out that there was a baby growing in me the illusions that I'd built for myself became irrelevant. So I walked into Walmart with a meager grade 11 education and a slight belly and asked if they were hiring.

There were certain things you could smuggle out of that Walmart and certain things you couldn't. For example, cake was a no. Bread was a no. But some things you could slip into your bag on the way out without anybody asking questions. Flour, for example, is something that by boss would turn the other cheek to. Apples and broccoli I could slip into my purse on my way out. People can't ever imagine somebody stealing something like broccoli.

Shortly after Regine was born I had my tubes trimmed and solemnly swore to never go with a man again. I never told my parents about her because I'm sure that they would want to see her, and Regine deserved better than that. Instead, we lived in the basement of a rich old lady's house who never bothered to count how many bills you gave her, so as long as the pile was thick, it didn't matter. Once I paid her with fifteen five dollar bills and she didn't realize the difference as long as the bills on the ends were twenties. She also loved Regine, and would take her upstairs with her and dance around the kitchen while I made tomato soup out of ketchup and water, because you can't smuggle canned goods.

I never pretended to be the perfect mother. There was a daycare two blocks away from our house that said if you had more than two children you didn't pay for the excess. I convinced a lady whose twins were taken there to pretend that Regine was one of her children. The lady had a very thick German accent and barely knew what I was saying, so she obliged happily.

Regine reached the age of two with a giddy smile and adorable giggle. I met a man at a cafe I had been working at, alongside Walmart. He bought me a coffee after my shift and told me I was beautiful. For I minute there, I believed him. He asked if he could buy me dinner one night. Starving for a meal that wasn't made with three or fewer ingredients, I said yes. I brought Regine along too, simply because the baby-sitter didn't work after 8, and the man fell in love. His name was Jean-Pierre, JP, and he drank fine wine and thought I was much richer than I really was. I told him that I painted and was only working at the cafe for the free coffee. JP was a french baker who sold bread for $20 a loaf, because it was just that fucking fancy. I didn't swear as we talked and I pretended to be patient when Regine cried and for a little bit, I felt almost functional. He asked to see one of my drawings so I told him I would show him one day. He paid for my taxi home.

We got married one year later. I was actually not a bad artist but I mostly found pictures off the internet to copy. For once, I coloured in the lines. He moved into my basement because he wanted Regine to feel comfortable. For a while everything was perfect. I actually, for the first time in my life, had sex because I wanted to and not because I felt compelled to. Not that I really loved JP, not in the Bonnie and Clyde, never-let-go, follow-you-into-the-dark kind of way. But I loved him like a good friend, a good friend with a ten inch dick. I was so tangled into this lie of a life that I actually forgot I had ever worked at Walmart, or that the cafe had once paid my bills.

Regine was very good at copying. She knew exactly when to smile at JP so he would give her a chocolate croissant, she knew exactly when to cry, once he had just finished making cinnamon rolls, and she knew exactly what mood JP and I were in based on how we greeted her. Regine was the smartest three year old in all of Toronto, I'm sure. She was loved by JP and the landlord, and I guess me by default. She was an asset, a very cute asset.

Just as I began to breath, the world fucked me over again.

Regine's father, Frank, found me. He was drunk and I was walking to an art show with Regine. The sun was just rising. He waddled over to me and whispered slurred nonsense into my ear, then followed us to the gallery. He pinched my butt as we walked and patted Regine's head. She copied me, though, and didn't acknowledge him. Frank found me the next day in the front of JP's shop. Regine was in the back, pouting at JP for a macaroon I'm sure. He sat next to me and apologised about yesterday and asked if I would like to go out for a smoke with him. I hasn't been out for a smoke in nearly four years. It felt good.

"Beaut of a boy ye got there." he said.

"Yes, she's wonderful. Very smart. Kinda manipulative, to be honest."

"How old is 'e?"

"She's three."

"Is 'e mine?"

I didn't say anything.

"How did you know?" I muttered finally.

"She has my hair."

He was right, Regine had Frank's dirty blond hair that curled into ringlets on damp days and barely ever knotted.

"I'll come home with you, then."

"No. JP's her legal father."

"Nah, I'm 'is pop."

"God damn it, she's a girl."

"No, he's a boy." he extinguished his cigarette into my arm. I whimpered in pain. "And," Frank shouted into my face, "It's my constitutional right to claim my own son! Is that understood? You're against the law! I could sue you! I could have him taken away from you!"

I shuttered at the thought. I'd never much studied law, and I didn't know what the word 'constitution' meant, but it was a long word so it must be serious. I believed Frank, the same way I believed him when he said he'd pull out. I walked into the bakery with a cigarette still dangling out of my mouth, told JP not to come home tonight, grabbed Regine, and before JP could muster another word ran out of the bakery into Frank's arms. I paid for our taxi home.

One of the pamphlets I got from the hospital on parenting recommended that your child get 90 minutes of exercise a day, which I thought was far too little. Instead of 90 minutes, I would drop Regine off at the section of Walmart that housed the outdoor play-structures and she would play in there until my shift was over. Regine was very shy, so it was easy to tell her to stay in one place and not have to check on her. As she grew older, I became more determined that she should be skinny and fit, as I couldn't be, with my pregnancy belly still not fully flattened.

The landlord, the old lady with spiky purple hair and a record player in her kitchen, said Regine, who at the time was only five or so, had the perfect body of a dancer. They she would grow to be taller then me, as she presumed she had inherited her father's genes. She said Regine would have long lanky arms and tall, skinny legs. She taught Regine to dance in her kitchen as swan lake played in the background and Frank smoked in the living room beneath them. Frank was still set on having a boy so he signed Regine up for karate lessons. To pay for them, he brought the Sensei cannabis, and charged him extra because the Sensei didn't realize that cannabis was the same plant as marijuana.

When Regine reached school age, we sent her to a Jewish school because Frank said Jews were that smartest, so she would learn from the best. Regine, however, hated reading. She refused to read with any of her teachers and would rip up books if we brought them home. She loved math, though. She would listen intently if Frank every brought up ounces or payment. She loved counting how many cups of flour went into muffins. She wouldn't eat strawberries unless she knew exactly how many there were.

She got thrown out of school for kicking a boy in the head and calling him a 'fuck-tard' when she was six. So she went to public school. She was never all that smart, she took everything too literally. Once, the teacher said to draw a picture of our family. She drew me in a cafe working and Frank with a cigar hanging out of his mouth and smoke fogging up half of the page. In the corner she put JP, who was holding a cupcake with a pink heart in it.

I stopped painting soon after the divorce papers were filled. JP preached that I had rights and Frank was liar, but that was the problem. I was a liar too.

The landlord recommended that I buy Regine pointe shoes for Regine's seventh birthday. Frank, instead, bought her nunchucks. He still called Regine 'Reggie' because he wouldn't accept that he'd had a girl. The landlord told us that if we didn't get her lessons soon then she would miss her prime. Frank refused to pay for lessons. He also refused to pay rent, and here lay the problem. I sent Regine to a dance studio and told her to watch through the window what all the other ballerinas were doing. When she got home she told the landlord what she's seen and tried to recreate it. After two weeks of dropping her off everyday the owner of the studio noticed and told us that we had to start paying for classes. Regine told her we couldn't pay for them, so the owner told her to go sort all the tutus by colour and put them each in their own packaging, then said that Regine could attend the beginner class.

Regine was too good for the other girls, though. To the owners distress she was moved into intermediate, then advanced, then advanced II, until she was in the competition team. It took her the year to get used to pointe, but with the landladies help and the fitness she'd gained from karate, she was entered in a citywide competition with funding from the studio. Regine stopped going to karate and instead would go to the studio and clean the washrooms or scrub the studio floors before and after classes. Frank still denied she was a girl and refused to go to any of her recitals because he didn't want his son to be a fag. He would cut her hair while she was sleeping because he hated when she let it grow down to her shoulders. He would only buy her boy clothes as well, but I learned that once Regine was in Middle School she kept a full wardrobe in her locker because the other students would tease her.

I dreamed often of the day I would leave Frank, but I was afraid of what he'd do if he ever found me, or what he'd do to Regine after I was gone. I'd have to leave Regine here because there's no way I could afford to take her with me.

When Regine turned twelve she was asked to dance Clara in the nutcracker for a company. The landlady was right, Regine was five foot seven and had tall, thin legs. Her arms moved elegantly, like wings that could break any second or else fly away. This was also the year she achieved her black belt in karate, and the year she met Matty Healy, who may have been the best thing to ever happen to her.

Matty and her had an unspoken agreement that they were perfect for each other. They would watch TV in our livingroom with their elbows entwined and legs overlapping. They would play drinking games then pretend to be angry when the other when the other person won. It was refreshing to realize that love still does exist. More importantly, that love exists beyond the realm of reality.

Frank forbid Matty from coming over because he thought 'Reggie' and him were too close, and he wouldn't have a gay son. I wished, briefly, once, that Regine would be gay, then I wouldn't have to worry about her ever getting pregnant. But no, she had to fall in love. And even worse, she did it without even trying. I was almost jealous.

Frank was not a wonderful man. He was not kind or empathetic or sweet. He was a lovely drunk, contrary to what you may think. He was goofy and clumsy and sweet when he drank. Sometimes, I pretended the smell of beer was instead lavender and that his lips weren't dyed red from the wine but instead from my lipstick. In those moments, I was almost in love. A love with blurred edges and slurred speech and dizzy frames and slow reactions. A love that I wake up some mornings and I can't remember existed. Those forgotten moments were what I lived for.

But the rest of the time Frank was a dick. He never hit me. Well, he didn't hit me regularly. And he didn't take his anger out on me, at least not in that way. When he hit me I deserved it. The only thing that hurt was when he extinguished cigarettes into my arm. He said it was a metaphor. He said I was too dumb to understand, so I didn't try to.

Frank could yell, though. All the time. Every day when he came home he was angry at the world and he attributed that to Regine and I. He would lock Regine in her room and shout at me, then lock me in the bathroom and go back and yell at her, and he would repeat this for a long time. But Regine was smarter than him. She would sneak out the window and go to Matty's house. This I was jealous for, because the bathroom had no window, and because he would return even angrier that she had escaped his wrath, and because she had somebody to run to.

The year 1975 came around. It was _the _1975, because it was the day my life de-shit-ified itself.

Regine took third in a national ballet competition wearing a fake bun, because her hair was still short, and second hand leotards. She was also baked, but when you're on stage, it just looks spiritual instead of stupid. She won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School. I didn't ask if she'd taken it, I knew she was a smart girl, I knew what she'd do. She was fifteen and she was destined for bright things.

I think it's a rule that at some point every child has to run away. At the cafe, one of the baristas with a little boy complained that he'd run away five times already, and each time she had to unpack all his clothes and explain to him something new that he'd discovered, like why the man sitting on the corner asks for change, or why couples roll around naked in the bushes, or what kinds of people stand in a tight circle in the park at three in the morning. Each time the boy would say 'I love you' to his mother when he returned, then run away a few months later.

Regine ran away when she was seven. She didn't take clothes, or canned goods, or even money. She took who bottles of cooking brandy in her _Hello Kitty _lunch bag and walked straight into Jackson Square. She sold the bottles of brandy, claiming they were a gift God had bestowed upon her, and that whoever drank them would be granted riches beyond belief. She make two hundred dollars on those bottles. With the money she got herself Euros, because she thought the only thing more valuable than money, must be foreign money. I thought it was cute, Frank did not. I hated seeing her get hurt, but what can I say? She deserved it.

I, however, never ran away as a child. So I missed out, I guess. I needed to do it before I died. So I ran away when I was seventeen instead. Except I was serious, and I didn't take a _Hello Kitty _lunch box.

My parents weren't horrible people. They were much nicer than Frank, at least. But not as nice as JP. Not even close. They worked alot, and ignored me alot, but they always found something about me that was wrong. So I made a point of avoiding my house because I didn't like being criticized. If by some chance I was home in time for dinner, and did get to hear my parents ostracize me, then I made it my goal to make every thing they said come true.

_You're such a brat!_

I refused to eat my vegetables.

_You're spoiled rotten!_

I wouldn't wear shoes until they bought me new ones.

_You're so disrespectful!_

I spit in their face.

_You're vain!_

I started wearing makeup.

_Why are you such an idiot?!_

I dropped out of school.

_You're such a whore. _

I had Regine.

_You have no appreciation for anything worthwhile in your life!_

I ran away.

I figured that was it, I got my one good run in, now I've matured. Now I've settled.

But I haven't.

Maybe I'm like the barista's son, who has to keep uncovering horrible things until he can find something beautiful to cover it up with. Maybe I'm still angry at my parents. Maybe I'm angry at Frank. Maybe I envy Regine because she found something I couldn't, love. Because that's why the barista's son came back, wasn't it? Love? Or dinner? Or air conditioning?

I wanted one last hurrah before I went, so I tried something new. Ecstasy. With coke and rum. Spiked with roofie.

But the thing with the last hurrah, is that it's your last.

I just never thought I would find myself in a police car by the end.

But the police car was so damn peaceful. As they drove me down to the police station, with Regine beside me, and Frank in a car slightly in front of us, I was relaxed. Regine was crying, perhaps in fear, or anger, or grief. I cried in relief.

Now I couldn't run away anymore.

The muted sounds of sirens bled through the locked door. We passed a church with a clock on one of the towers, it was midnight. The soft sounds of traffic cocooned me. Car lights seemed like blurred stars in my vision; never close enough for me to reach, but just close enough for me to crave.

I'll admit, I was high. The air was solid around me, pushing into me and swirling around my head. I held Regine close to me in the back of the car, as my final act of motherhood. I breathed in her hair, her hair that filtered out the solid parts of the air for me.

We were driving down to the police station, it seemed too good to be true. Regine and I could live in adjoint cubicles in jail. We could braid each others hair and talk about all the things I never got to tell her before, like how to get boys to pay your rent, or how to lick the eyeliner brush to get a clean line, or how to lick a dick so they jizz faster.

Regine whimpered softly beneath her hair.

She smelled clean.

So I had another revelation, she would walk. She would finally run away for good. I was happy for her. I was glad she and Matty could finally run away together. I wished I could jump into her bones and live her life. Living vicariously through your child is bad, but I didn't want that. I didn't just want to slip into her skin. I wanted to consume her. For us to switch places, respectively. For another chance to run away.

I kissed the top of her head as we pulled up to the station. I kissed her for as long as I could, to make up for all the times I didn't kiss her, and for all the times I wouldn't be there to kiss her. I breathed into her hair. She smelled clean.


	2. Five: Sex

The Taste

Based on _Sex_ by The 1975

Rein was the type of girl who was out of your league. It didn't matter who you were or what you did or _what_ you did; she was out of your league. She wasn't necessarily 'too good for you', not always. She could also be too pretty, too smart, too dumb, too bad, too much, or just plain too cool for you. No matter, in some way or another, nobody could ever deserve her.

And yet, every guy in the whole of the underground craved her beyond reason. Not because she was perfect, because she wasn't, not entirely. Sometimes, if you were really high, she seemed pretty close to angelic. But Rein had many flaws, she was spontaneous to a point of recklessness, she never committed to anything, and you couldn't trust her, no matter how badly you wanted to. You couldn't will her into anything, you couldn't offer her anything, she wouldn't take anything, and she was not generous. Then why would any guy living in north Hamilton cut off their left ball just to talk to her alone and sober?

It helped that she was pretty. She was tall, but never taller than any man, perfect dating height. She had a heart shaped face that seemed to steal the sun's rays. She would look at you with her deep, almond eyes that read your every emotion like pages on a book. Her eyes, rimmed with gold if you ever got close enough to peer into them, that could have spoken a thousand words but instead were totally silent. She had a smile worth a million dollars, pink and pouty lips than stretched around her pearly straight teeth though she swore to never have had braces, and melted any iron stare. Her handsome face was framed with long, curly, brown-blonde hair. Curly hair was perfect for sex. Straight hair, as everybody knew, just knotted and stuck to your face with sweat, but curly hair fills your hand when you run your fingers around her scalp and feels like a cloud when you press your face into it.

She was slim and fit, but not skinny. She had a black belt in something or other and could beat you up at anytime. However, she carried herself with elegance and grace, like she was being watched by the queen. She was a queen. She'd refused the Royal Ballet School and a contract with some fancy modern dance company. Instead she chose a bottle and a plant.

She wasn't book smart, in fact she never finished school. Teacher's never liked her much; Rein didn't answer to authority well. But she never got in trouble, she had a shielding look of innocence about her wherever she went. Rein was street smart, though; clever and innovative.

So it was only natural that she should fall in love with Matty States. Matty was out of a whole other league. He was skinny, hollow. He'd been emptied of all human-ness years ago. He'd lost his soul sometime between ages 15 and 16. He never looked anybody in the eye, he never seemed relaxed, he was always in agony, and he never knew a day without bliss coated pain.

The two were a perfect match; Rein was what he needed, Matty was what she wanted.

They met in third period. The class was grade 12 enriched English. Their teacher sat them alphabetically, so that Rein Mathews sat directly in front of Matty States. He knew her name. He knew her story. He watched her ponytail bob up in down and knew without checking what was in it.

The teacher asked Rein what the date was. She replied: "I think it's like a plum, purple and wrinkly. A fruit, maybe?"

The teacher threw her out. Matty drew the back of Rein's head onto the back of her chair. I though it was amazing, considering he'd only seen her once. But I was wrong.

The next day Matty left a cookie on Rein's desk. She threw it out. The day after that there was a change in the seating arrangement because Rein Mathews was now Rein Atkinson. Her name was changed seven times that year, Matty counted.

On the second week of school Matty left a brownie on Rein's desk along with a detailed sketch of her that previous Saturday night while she was at a rave on Toby street. Matty had only stopped in to check it out, but left as soon as he'd seen her. In the picture, she had a little white pill in her left hand and a smoke in her right. Her mouth was empty, however, and slightly open. She was gazing up into the ceiling as if for answers that should be written there for her to read. She looked tired in that picture, like this wasn't the life she wanted, like she was now realizing for the first time what a shit-hole she was in. But she was tapped in the couch Matty had drawn he in. Rein strutted over to Matty's desk and dropped his presents over his finished homework.

"Don't you have better things to do than bake your life's work for me and waste paper?" she snapped.

"No, not really." He answered, brushing the chocolate off of his essay. "Do you?"

"Yeah." Then she walked back to her seat.

The following day Rein left a cupcake with pink icing on Matty's desk along with a half-ass sketch of Matty last night with two smokes in his mouth and a needle in his wrist.

By the end of the year the baking had become a regular act. Needless to say, Matty's were always drugged and never eaten. Each time Matty ate the gift's from Rein he waited for the tell-tale tingling in his legs confirming the pot in the food, but it never came. Rein's gifts were always clean.

The week after March break Matty was absent. Not that he'd had a perfect attendance, just that he'd never missed seven consecutive days after a weeklong break. The teacher asked if anybody knew where he was. She said she'd called his parents but the line was disconnected. I almost laughed; nobody as empty as Matty could have a family.

Rein found him in an alley off of Main street with blood dripping down his nose.

"Matty, she signed, "what shit are you on?"

"Can't say." he answered, over pronouncing his 'a's. "It's a secret." He put one finger over Rein's lips to silence her, then burst into hysterical laughter.

Rein held up four fingers. "Matty, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"An octopus!" Matty shrieked pointed at Rein's hand.

"What's my name, Matty?" she tried, exasperated.

"I d'know, it keeps changing - like the wind." Matty made a whooshing sound then proceeded to punch himself in the nose five times.

"Okay," Rein decided, "you're coming home with me."

Rein's apartment was seven floors above a Chinese Restaurant. It smelled sweet and was always warm. She put Matty on a dilapidated couch in her 'living room', then went into the kitchen to get ice. Beside the fridge there was a door that led to a small, mildew coated bathroom. That was all there was in the apartment. Across from the couch Matty had now crawled into, Rein had lain down a mattress and pillow. Matty tossed the ice across the room and it crunched against the wall.

"It's the wind." he hissed. "The wind is coming to get me."

"Sure, Matty."

In Rein's apartment, which faced a bustling street full of shops and cafes, it never truly got dark. Fragments of the city light dribbled in though the un-curtained window and diffused into the rest on the apartment. Despite the lack of darkness, however, Rein fell asleep instantly on her thin, spring mattress. Matty muttered all night long.

When Matty woke up it was almost 2 pm the next day. He was confused; finding himself in a stranger's house with no recollection of getting there, as well as the mysterious smell of freshly baked bread that filled his pores. As he tried to get up he fell flat on the floor and realized he had a pounding headache. He also discovered a constant pain resonating from his nose. He then came to the revelation that he was covered in blood.

Rein peeked her head in from the kitchen. Matty let out a little shout that sounded halfway between 'hi' and 'fuck'.

"Morning, sunshine." Rein sang mockingly. Her words echoed in Matty's head and bounced around his skull, increasing his headache.

Matty tried again to speak but as he opened his mouth the pressure in his brain increased and he screamed a mix of 'what the hell' and 'fucking fuck'.

Rein giggled. "You were on a trip but your travel agent marooned you on Main. Oh, and you broke your own nose. You were convinced it was the wind." Rein disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water and two clear blue pills.

Matty looked up at her quizzically.

"I don't -fuck- want any -Jesus- of your fucking e right now." He said, clutching his ringing skull every few words.

"It's Advil, dip-shit. I haven't done e for months. I started getting hooked on it, and I don't like getting hocked on that kind of stuff. I wanna do shit because I want to, not because I have to."

Matty was about to say something, but before he could he promptly vomited on the floor. Rein sighed as he wretched and opened the solitary window as high as it would go. Once he was done, she dragged Matty up and supported him with her shoulders all the way to the tiny bathroom. Matty collapsed into her grimy bathtub and vomited again. Unfortunately, there was no windows in the bathroom. When he finally caught his breath Rein shoved the Advil down his throat and tipped the water to his lips, which he drank thirstily.

"Fan's broken." she declared flicking the switch beside the door. "The lights are broken too, but I knew that already. If I were you, I'd wash that down before it starts smelling."

Then Rein closed the bathroom door and returned to the kitchen. Matty slumped over pitifully in the bathtub and turned on the shower. Vomit and water swirled around him but he couldn't find the energy to stand up. The smell was so nauseating and pungent that he vomited again out of disgust. By the time he was sure there was no more food left in his stomach Rein had already popped in with two fresh Advil, which evidently worked quite effectively.

Half an hour later Matty waddled out of the bathroom wearing nothing but vomit soaked boxers.

"Can I borrow some clothes?" he asked with a raspy voice.

Rein giggled and whipped her floury hands on her skinny jeans.

She may have been laughing at Matty's acid soaked voice, or perhaps at his sagging underwear. Personally, I like to think that she was laughing at Matty's emptiness. Maybe I'm only saying that because I love Rein, and I wish she didn't love Matty, but it's also my best guess. He wasn't like the druggies in the movies; no six pack; no flawless tan skin; no confident strut. His ribs were visible beneath the stretched, pale skin of his chest. His face was nearly green with sickness and purple bags sagged beneath his grey eyes. Wrinkles consumed his forehead. I knew he wasn't weak, but he was skinny. I swear, if you looked hard enough, you could see right through his skin into his empty heart. And in that moment, Rein saw it. Deep in the vast, vacant heart of Matty was a spark, and that spark was her, and that's why she laughed.

Rein scurried into the living room and returned with a plastic grocery bag full of clothes.

"I steal something from every guy I marry." she explained, passing him the bag. "I was kinda keeping it, for sentimental purposes, but I figure you need it."

Matty took the bag filled with an entire men's wardrobe.

"9." Rein clarified. "9 guys, that's what you were wondering. I've been married 9 times."

Matty just stared at her.

"Well, go, change." she said.

"Thanks." Matty muttered before returning to the bathroom.

When Matty returned Rain was kneading bread.

"I smell like a fucking girl." he announced grudgingly, freshly showered.

"Well, since I am female, and this is my house, and you used my soap, I'm not shocked."

She looked over at Matty. He was wearing a pink floral button up, open to reveal his nearly empty heart. Under that a pair o jeans that were slightly too tight for him and a pair of thick worker socks.

Rein snorted.

"What? What is it?" Matty solicited, surveying himself.

"Nothing, just the context of the clothes."

"What?"

Rein laughed for a while then took a deep breath.

"Well, the socks belonged to my parole officer. The jeans were owned by a guy who was probably half your size, and the shirt actually belonged to the first guy I ever married for money."

"Oh yeah."

"Yeah, he was gay, but he couldn't admit it 'cuz his parents were cuckoo-Christians, right. They got suspicious and he got worried, so he paid me to marry him."

"Nice."

"Well, he wasn't a total dick anyway."

"Did you guys, like, have sex?"

"No, but he got me my first vibrator."

"Oh, nice."

"It's funny, you probably picked the top three non-douche-bag husbands. Wait, the bunny boxers or the banana ones?"

"Banana."

"Damn, almost." Rein giggled. "You can just leave the rest of the stuff in the other room. You hungry? It's almost dinner."

"Oh, yeah."

Matty went into the other room and absorbed what the living room looked like for the first time: a couch covered with a threadbare blanket on it, a mattress flat against the wall, a small, blue dresser, and a desk with a stool tucked under. The door had three separate locks and two chains hanging on it. He wondered who she was keeping out. He dropped the dam bag and re-entered the kitchen where Rein was buttering a piece of toast.

"My morning-after cure. Figure you're up to it?" Rein teased.

"Yeah, thanks." Matty accepted the toast and sat in a small table at the corner of the kitchen which had two mismatched chairs on either side.

"Where's your husband?" Matty asked, biting into the toast.

"Who? Oh, Mason? Divorced eight after March break. I guess you wouldn't know, being away and all." Rein returned to kneading her bread.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

"Did you have sex with him?"

"Not because I wanted to. I guess it really depends on your definition of sex."

"Did you suck his dick?"

Rain chuckled. "If that's sex, then yeah."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, I like to think that sex is more than just sucking a dick. Like, for it to be real sex there has to be some kind of mutual love involved. I don't know."

"No. I get it. Did he rape you?"

"Not exactly. Technically I consented, but I didn't really want to."

"Why did you marry him if you didn't really love him?"

"Why else? He had a big house with maids and food and all the weed I could smoke."

"Why did you dump him, then?"

Rein laughed. "I wish. He dumped me. I got too comfy. At first I was his young rebel, then I became his juvenile liability. That's why this place looks like crap; I didn't have any prep time to find a good apartment. He just paid me out of his life, asshole."

"This place is better than my place."

"Where are you staying?"

"The Stables."

Rein gasped. "You gotta get outta there, Matty."

"Why? It's cheap. Plus all my clients are there."

"That's a whole new pile of shit down there. You die in that hole, Matty. You don't just get out."

"How d'you know? You're living it up here in your own apartment."

"I was there, Matty. That was my first job; to clean out the dead bodies. Strip off all their valuables and drugs and money. It's a shit-hole down there, Matty, a shit-hole."

The Stables is a rotting building on Barton Street, which is a bad neighborhood to start. The rumor is that the building used to be a mental asylum, however the facts say that it was a warehouse. It's comprised of five open floors with rows of stalls and cubicles, hence the name, that people live in. It's a total high-house, all users and dealers. The first floor is known as 'rock bottom' because you know you're near death when you can't make it up the stairs.

"Where am I supposed to live?"

"Here".

"What?"

"Anywhere Matty, just not the Stables."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah." Rein stopped kneading the bread and started pulling and twisting the dough.

"Yeah? Thanks."

Rein smiled. "Now, you can so the dishes."

"What are you doing, anyway?" Matty asked.

"My job. I'm a baker for a few cafes and stuff. Yeah, you just have to giggle the hot water handle a while, the sinks a bitch."

She pointed at the sink Matty was currently wrestling with. A great spurt of water rushed out and sprayed him in the face.

Rein laughed. "The house is welcoming you."

Matty moved in the next day. By then Rein had had time to wipe down the bathroom and find another dresser for her new roommate. It was a Sunday, and Matty remembered, because Rain had a pile of schoolwork on the floor as Matty entered with two duffle bags containing all of his possessions and a mattress with a blanket rolled inside.

"Matty!" Rein shrieked from the kitchen as he closed the door and heard the click of the locks. "Thank God! Come wash your hands and start kneading."

Matty entered the kitchen to a blast of heat and scents. On the stove Rein was tending at the moment there were two pans; one full of bananas to which Rein was adding brown sugar and molasses; the other was a sizzling mix of berries. Mason jars and tins of flours and other powders littered the counter. Dirty bowls and half finished mixes were lined up across the room. Matty walked over to the sink to wash his hands.

"I fucking hate Sunday. Fucking cupcakes. I hate cupcakes. I was so busy with the god damn cupcakes I forgot about the fucking cinnamon rolls." she shouted and pointed to two bowls full of pale pink dough. Matty began peeling off the cling wrap and floured the table according to Rein's angry gestures.

"I don't know how to knead." he said.

"Fucking figure it out."

Matty pulled out the two sticky balls and began rolling then onto the table.

"How long do I do it for?"

"Until it stops being sticky. Fuck!" she quickly extinguished the heat from both elements.

Rein scraped the now golden banana sliced into a plastic bag and scooped the blue mush into an empty relish squeeze bottle. She labeled them with masking tape and a black marker: 'caramelized bananas' and 'blue/black/ras jam'. She stored both containers into the fridge. Rein checked off two boxes from a long list taped to the fridge and mumbled some instructions to herself. Then she ran back to the counter and began pulling large, empty mason jars out of a cabinet.

"Why do you hate cupcakes?" Matty asked innocently.

"Do you know how many kinds of cupcakes there are?" she didn't wait for an answer. "One. Just plain vanilla cupcakes. Then you add a fuck-ton of crap into it and squeeze stuff down it's ass and sprinkle shit into the icing and call it a new flavor." She aggressively scooped flour into one of the jars. "But you can't just accept the chocolate and vanilla, no, you need to add twenty other fucking combinations and then sell them for five bucks each!" Matty let her take her anger out on the sugar.

"What are you doing?"

"Pre-making. You add all the dry ingredients into a bowl all premeasured and just put in butter and milk and eggs right before you bake. It's faster. I do it with everything. The stupid bakeries insist of everything being fresh. So you know how hard it is to make everything fucking fresh?"

"Is that why you hate Sundays, because it's cupcake day?"

"Sundays are everything day. I did the muffins and breads and cookies before you got here. I just have these bitches, the cakes, pastry, and then I'm done.

The jars, by the time she'd finished, were layered with different powders and sugars and toppings, from chocolate to oats to cranberries. She did all the icings in one noisy uproar involving a lot of cursing at and threatening butter to melt faster. She did the cakes the same way. By the time they got to pastries Matty was full time kneading while Rein hovered over the stove making all sorts of fillings.

Rein finally collapsed into her kitchen chair at 6. Matty and her ate chocolate croissants for dinner.

"I fucking hate Sundays." Rein repeated as she hunched over her English homework with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. "Did you finish that stupid essay?"

"Yeah. I finish everything while she's talking. She never says anything important anyway."

"How did you get so smart?"

"D'know. Luck"

"Fuck that. Share some knowledge with me; what was that Frosty guy saying about the two roads and him taking the sketchy one?"

"He took the road less traveled by."

"Oh, so he, like, broke the system, fought authority. How do I make a connection to that without directly insulting the entire school system? '_I respect my teachers by kissing their ass' so that they will give me good letters of recommendation for scholarships, yet I still remain individual by skipping class, smoking in the stairwells, and ignoring everything they fucking try to teach us.'" _Rein joked.

Matty laughed. "Actually, the poem wasn't about individuality. What the author was trying to convey was that it doesn't matter which path you take, the sketchy one or the fancy-ass one, you end up in the same place, no matter what. Individuality is really just an illusion, we're all the same and end up in the same place."

"So the meaning of the poem is 'nobody gives a fuck'?"

"Yup, pretty much."

"Perfect, there's my thesis."

The next morning Rein was up at 4am with ovens blasting at full force, mixers at their highest volume, and timers beeping every couple minutes. Groggily, Matty wandered into the kitchen. Rein was running around with icing bags balanced on her shoulders and oven mitts over her hands, pulling things out of the oven and throwing things in assorted places with their labels still on. A new list had been taped to the fridge, Matty learned, as he went to find something to drink.

"There's coffee, if you want. I'll be out in two hours, though, so then you can fall back asleep." she nudged her head towards a tiny coffee machine on top of a brown stained paper towel that was steadily dripping coffee both into the pot beneath it and around the pot.

"Thanks." Matty shuffled through her many cupboards and found a mug with a pink cat on it. He filled it to the brim with black coffee, chugged his first cup, and dove into a second.

"Where did you escape to last night? I heard the door close." Rein asked drawing a smiley face onto a white cake.

"Nowhere intelligible." he said.

"That's what I thought. You can help yourself to a muffin in you want. Russian roulette, guess the flavor."

"Thanks." Matty picked out one with chocolate chunks and discovered the chocolate was complemented with banana. He watched her dash around, picking things up and swearing at assorted foods. She was elegant as she did so, her legs extended as they hopped around and her arms reached gracefully with their elongated fingers. When the list on the fridge was finally full she packed all the steaming baked goods into three baskets and tossed her blue backpack over her shoulder. She pulled a box of cigarettes out of a drawer and pulled her hair into a messy bun. Rein carefully took three of the thin, white smokes and tucked two into her hair. She popped the other in her mouth and lit it with the stove.

"Can you see any sticking out?" She asked, spinning so Matty could see every angle of her hair.

Matty shook his head.

"Good. They've been searching my bag in school. After the coke incident they won't take any chances; apparently my French teacher got in a lot of trouble. See you at school, Matty." she said running out the door, baskets balanced precariously on her hip.

"Bye."

In English Matty left a sketch of Rein in her bra and underwear eating a cupcake as she laughed into the paper.

"Matty," she whispered behind her just as class was about to start, "you can't leave cheeky pictures like this, my boyfriend won't like them. He's still unsure about you as a roommate."

Matty sank a little lower in his seat. He felt the spark grow a little fainter. "Oh, I didn't know you had a boyfriend."

Then the bell rang and everybody but Rein passed their essays to the front.

Matty caught a glimpse of her at lunch, sharing a cigarette with me. Her fingers were hooked around one of my belt loops. I saw him peek through someone's car window. I winked at him. He stormed away after that. I drove her home after school and she told me all about how she wanted to stop smoking and was going to start drinking again instead in-between puffs. Except, she noted, she can't slip beer into her ponytail. I laughed.

When I dropped her off at her apartment she kissed me goodbye through the window. Matty was unpacking something from a new duffle bag as she unlocked the door.

"Police checks are every other Friday, by the way, unless someone rats you out. I keep my fix in a tampon box." she said leisurely as she strolled in and dropped her bag on the floor.

"Thanks." Matty said.

"Are you going to Ally's tonight?"

"What are they doing?"

"Just booze and pot, I'm pretty sure. Dolly invited me."

"No thanks. I'm not feeling like dealing with Dolly."

"Bad day?"

"Yeah, actually. You didn't tell me that your boyfriend was Cory."

"I figured he'd already told you. We started going out the day I picked your sorry ass off the street. I thought you two were best mates or something?"

"Yeah, well, so did I."

"You're seriously mad about this. How immature."

"Have you had sex with him?"

"Why is it that we only ever talk about sex?"

"Did you?"

"Yeah. Sex means nothing, Matty. I told you, I've fucked an infinite amount of dick-heads."

"Yeah, but Cory's not a dick-head."

"Fair enough. He's a rich guy with a tiny dick and no balls."

"He's the guy who lied to the cops and told them I was his brother so they wouldn't send me back to my parents. He has more balls then you!"

"No, like seriously, no testies."

"The fuck?"

"No joke. Now, I need a smoke." she rushed over to her drawer in the corner of the kitchen.

"Is Cory going to Ally's tonight?"

"No. He's sick of Dolly too."

"Then I'll go."

"That's it! Go fuck his ex! You go Matty."

"He dated Dolly?"

"Damn, he doesn't tell you anything, does he?"

To be honest, the party was lame. The music was crap and not quite loud enough to drown out a drunk Dolly as she ran up and down the stairs screaming and laughing. Matty and Rein each dropped a five dollar bill into a red cup at the entrance marked 'pay up or I will find you' and a picture of a dick. Rein pulled a cigarette out of her ponytail and asked Matty for a light. He obliged and pulled out a lighter. They walked into the living room of Ally's large house. Ally was sitting on some girls lap and they were giggling things into each other's ears and seeing who could make the most smoke rings.

"Hey." she said absentmindedly. "Booze there." she pointed vaguely to the center of the room where a cooler was leaking ice onto the carpet.

"Were gonna play rainbow." said the girl Ally was sitting on.

"Shut up, Meggy. You're so lesbian you've never even seen a cock in the flesh." Ally scolded.

"First time for everything, right Matty." she winked at him.

Matty nodded, grabbed two beers from the cooler and guided Rein outside where a bonfire was brewing. He found a log for the two of them so sit on and took two lopsided paper rolls from his pocket. Rein lit them and they toasted their pot to not being dead yet.

"Rein, are you genuinely happy here?" Matty asked after taking a long drag.

"I'm not really happy anywhere." Rein said as smoke drifted through her nose and mouth. "Nobody really is."

"Where will you be happy?"

"I'm gonna open a bakery in the South of France and sell baguettes to rich old people who would die if they knew I'd ever smoked pot." she laughed.

"Are you happy with Cory?"

"Matty, it's not personal. With me it's never personal. He pays me to date him, you realize that. He pays my rent. And yours."

"Yeah. I guess."

"Where will you be happy?"

"I d'know. Mrs. Black wants to send me to Oxford on scholarship."

"You should do it."

"No. It's not me. There's no pretty girls to get high with in Oxford."

Rein giggled. She stopped dead when I walked through Ally's back door.

"Hey, Rein. Come on in, they're playing rainbow." I hollered. Rein said something to Matty but she never told me what it was.

"You can guess what color my lipstick was once it's over." She shouted after him.

I wanted to be mad at her, I did. But then she put her fingers through my belt loop and Ally handed her a green tube of lipstick and I forgot how to be mad. That was the power Rein had, she was so flawed you almost had to forget about her problems.

Matty walked in just after the game. We were counting rings with our dicks hanging out as the girls covered their mouths and ran into the kitchen.

"I've got three red ones." Some guy said, pointing to the three red lines around his dick.

"I got five green." I teased, winking at Matty as he strolled by. "Oy, Matty, catch." I tossed him the tube of green lipstick. He threw it at my head.

A couple of girls, including a toppling Dolly and grinning Meggy, strolled back in. Rein scurried after them with a cigarette dangling from her bare and cracking lips.

"Who won?" she said with the paper still in her mouth.

"Rick." Cory sighed, zipping up his pants.

"Ricky dicky!" Dolly sang before tumbling drunkenly into a tall, red-head's arms.

Rein walked over to me and gave me a puff of her cigarette.

"Damn girl, got enough tar in that? You can taste it." I coughed.

Rein shrugged. "Matty could take it."

"Oh yeah, Matty. Hey, you mind giving Rein a ride home. A couple of us are gonna go back to the Stables but we here you aren't there anymore. Get too cold for you?" I teased.

"No, I just didn't feel like dying in a ditch." Matty retorted.

"Right, I forgot, they mentioned you in the morning announcements: 'Matthew States has been accepted under full scholarship to _Oxford University, _along with Kate Middleton, Ritchie Rich, and Clarissa Kiss-Ass'_._" he said with a high voice, mimicking the Queen poorly.

"Fat fucking chance. I'd rather die in the Stables."

"Then come with us, pussy."

"At least I don't have to pay to get laid, ball-less."

"Wow, boys, calm down." Rein mediated.

"Yeah," Cory echoed. "No need to get violent."

Matty threw the first punch.

The next day in English Matty left a note on Rein's desk. He's scribbled with his non-dominant hand, because his right hand was wrapped in a cast, 'green'.

Rein smiled when she got it. "Nope," she said contently, Meggy and I switched. I was orange."

Rein's spark in Matty grew a little brighter.

"Nice shiner, by the way. You know Cory's pissed at you. You managed to break a rib and fracture two bones in his ankle. It'll heal, though, as long as he doesn't do too much shit in the meanwhile."

Matty smiled. "You're welcome."

"You know I have to kick you out, right? I mean, you beat my boyfriend's ass. Fiancé, actually. He proposed in the hospital. Two of the nurses cried."

"No ring?"

"He's not that rich."

Then class started.

Rein caught Matty just as he was exiting the apartment for the last time with a total of five duffle bags, two of which were empty.

"Bye, Matty." she sighed.

"Rein, do you wanna go somewhere with me?" he said boldly.

"I don't feel like getting high right now. I promised Cory I'd visit him tomorrow and the doctors won't let me in if I smell like something."

"No, I'm driving out to the coast to pick something up. You wanna keep me company?"

"Is it illegal?"

"Only if we get caught."

"Will I be back before 4 tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

I knew before Rein told me that they'd had sex. I just knew, you could see it in Matty's eyes; they had a spark in them.

They'd driven for about four hours when Rein finally told Matty to pull over. The sun had almost set over a farm in the middle of nowhere. They were a lonely car on a nearly deserted highway.

"So, this is how it starts?" Matty said.

Rein slipped into the back seat of the car and pulled off her black flats. She started unbuttoning her blouse, which was the white, school uniform. Her bra was a light purple lace.

"You're shirt looks so good." she whispered as her blouse hung on her shoulders. The shirt I was wearing was the pink floral one that had belonged to one of her previous husbands. "I share mine in my spare time."

Matty climbed into the back with her. Her skin was so smooth, like paper. Matty whispered her name into her fresh skin.

"We've got one thing in common, this is paradise." she muttered as Matty unbuttoned his shirt.

"You've got a boyfriend."

"He's nothing."

I'm sure Matty thought about this as he tugged down her underwear, maybe the thought occurred to him as she pulled down his.

"You lied." she muttered.

"About what?"

"You chose the bunny boxers."

"I thought only a jerk would wear bunny boxers."

"No, but he still wasn't as nice as you."

"You think I'm nice?"

"Not in the way I should."

Then he filled my shoes.

I didn't see them again until the next day. Rein was practically glowing. I stuffed fifty bucks into her bra and pulled out two little brown packets from under her boobs. She stuck her tongue down my throat and she even tasted a little like him, a little like nothing.

Her and Matty went back to her apartment together. Matty was busy with a notebook. He was writing down numbers and ounces across from them. Rein didn't ask about it.

"Do you really love him?" Matty asked as Rein's keys jingled when she threw then on the "Cory, I think so, right?" She said over the Running water as she washed her hands.

"What do you like about him?"

"The way he pays my rent." Rein laughed. Matty giggled half-heartedly. He looked at her expectantly. "Oh, you're serious. Well," she dried her hands on her floral print skirt, "I like his films. He got one shown in a theatre in Burlington just last week and he's working in a promotional short film for some political thing. He's supporting the Marijuana Party of Canada in the federal election, so he's moving up to Ottawa. I'm going with him and a couple others are getting out too."

"Do you like the way he looks?"

Rein cracked an egg into a bowl. "Not really. He kinda has a weird shaped face. I don't mind it, he still acts cool."

"Is he good?"

"In bed, he's got no fucking balls to grab!" Rein laughed. "Nah, he's not that good." Rein had finished her batter, which was apparently white, sugar smelling cookies, and began laying them out on a tray."

"Did you decide on Oxford yet?"

"I don't know." Rein took the cookie tray and stuck it in the red oven. Then she walked over to me and cupped my head in her hands.

"Matty, stop being an idiot, and do it." She kissed him. When she pulled away Matty was smiling.

"You taste the same."

"You don't."

She laid out the mattress and splayed her body on it. Matty crawled over her. She pulled his shirt off of his chest and he tip utter it the rest of the way over his head. She placed her hand over his heart and matched her heartbeats to his. Matty took her hand and kissed her knuckles. She slipped her hand into his hair. Matty pulled up the hem of her shirt, a white knit sweater. He kissed her belly button and slowly inched her shirt up until Rein had pulled it over her head and thrown it aside. Soon they were both stripped and rolling around. Rein was giggling and Matty, for once, wasn't empty. He held her hips steady with his hands. He was just about to put it in when Rein protested.

"No, Matty." She said gently pushing him away.

Matty just looked at her and understood. They both got up and got dressed again. Rein's timer went off and she took her cookies out of the oven. Matty sat in the couch with his head in his hands. He was hurt, because Rein wasn't generous. Rein knew it was empty sex, so she said no. If I were Matty I would have hated her, but all he did was wander into the kitchen and watch her braid her hair back then continue to ice the cookies.

"Thank you." He said. Rein didn't say anything. The cookies she was making were covered in blue icing with the words 'I QUIT' pipped on in pretty pink cursive.

The next week she dropped out of school. Her English teacher cried. Her and I drove away in a stolen Cadillac. I picked her up at after school with a few garbage bags of her stuff in the back seat. She sat on the trunk of the car and waved away the world she knew. Dolly and Ally were making out in the passenger seat, Ricky was driving, I sat in the back with Rein. The last thime Matty saw of her was in her most mundane state; skinny jeans and grey hightops. She stuck her young out at him to reveal a diamond pierced in her pink flesh. He was probably wondering when she got it, sometime between their drive and now. He didn't wave back.

It was on the drive to Ottawa that she told me of their relationship. When she was done I only asked one question.

"When did you guys meet?"

"In English, I told you."

"I don't believe you."

"Why not?" She came off the trunk and sat on my lap.

"Because he told me about you before, once, before I'd met you. He was high, but he knew you."

"What did he say about me?"

"He said an angel came to him when he started high school. He said the angel had smoked everything in the world. He said the angels name was Rein."

"I don't remember that."

"You weren't there. He said he taught you how to drive before he dropped you off in a foster home."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. He said you were scared so he have you his shirt because you liked the way he smelled."

Rein sighed. "We were friends in elementary school. He got me cigarettes from his brother and let me stay at his house when things got too crazy at mine."

"He said that shirt looked so good on you." Rein nodded. "And that you took your shoes off in the back of his van, and pulled in back with you, and kissed him."

Rein nodded. "It was our first time together. Kind of romantic, right before he left me in a foster home two hours away from his city. He stole his brothers lisence so he could be the one to drop me off. It meant something. I told him I'd find him one day, and he'd know me by the taste of my tongue. And I told him to wait for me, I didn't think he would. But he did. God knows I didn't. Boyfriends are how I survive."

"That's all I am to you," I raised my voice, "a filled requirement."

"No, not you. That's why I pierces my tongue, so now he can't taste me anymore. Now nobody will taste me anymore. Now it's a new taste and only you will know." We kissed for a while.

"Do you think he'll really go to Oxford?" Rein finally said.

"Yeah. I do. I've known him a while, he'll want to get out. But he can't come back, you know. He'll make enemies for leaving the business."

Rein nodded. She leaned into the seats and pressed her hand to my heart. She was comparing it to Matty's, I'm sure. She just couldn't seem to catch up to my rhythm.


End file.
